Hi everyone,

I am a second year Eng student, and for one of my classes the Prof expects us to do a project during exam period. (Project is due, December 15, 2008)

This is really going to conflict with study time for exams, and I was wondering if a proffessor is allowed to do this.

I looked through here "http://www.mcmaster.ca/policy/" and didn't find anything on this sort of situation.

Is the professor allowed to assign us a final project to do during exam period?

No, they shouldn't be. See: http://www.mcmaster.ca/univsec/policy/UGCourseMgmt.pdf

More specifically:

1.
Purpose:
The Assessment Ban is intended to enable students to continue to attend classes and start preparing for examinations held during the official University examination period.
a)
There is a university-wide ban on examinations and tests in the final week of classes: see below for exemptions. Each year the dates will be listed in the SESSIONAL DATES section of the undergraduate calendar.
2.
Application:
a)
Assignments worth more than 10% of the final course grade cannot be assigned during the examination ban period.
b)
Tests and exams cannot be scheduled during the examination ban period.
c)
Take home exams worth more than 10% of the final course grade cannot be due during the examination ban period.
3.
Exemptions:
a)
Tests, including lab tests, are exempt when they have the following characteristics:
•
The test is held in the normal class or lab time slot;
•
The test is worth no more than 10% of the final course grade.
b)
Requests for a waiver of the ban must be approved by the Faculty or Program Office before being considered by Undergraduate Council.

Thanks for that information,

However, the Final Project is worth 8% of the final grade, so I guess the prof is allowed to make us do this project.

However, my respect for him just dropped through the floor.

Originally Posted by crazy1291

Thanks for that information,

However, the Final Project is worth 8% of the final grade, so I guess the prof is allowed to make us do this project.

However, my respect for him just dropped through the floor.

What do you have to make? When was it assigned?

Just a side note: the above described examination ban is only for Tue Nov 25 - Dec 3. So I'm getting the impression there technically isn't any regulation on having assignments due during the exam period...

If assignments were assigned before the exam ban (as is the case here) I would say they're fair game. There's still about 10 days before the exam period starts.

I'm in that class too. I hate the fact that we have to do a monster project worth 8% during our exams(2nd year engineering, no less). This blows. Can we do anything?

**UPDATE: just sent him an email asking nicely for a change of plans...let's see what happens

Originally Posted by DannyV

If assignments were assigned before the exam ban (as is the case here) I would say they're fair game. There's still about 10 days before the exam period starts.

I can see how something like that where you CAN get it done before the exam period would be acceptable. This is not the case.

The project information was only posted YESTERDAY. The originally scheduled work periods were every Tuesday, during our regular lab period, from November 25 to December 16. However, we missed one week during the term, so now that's cut down to three lab periods.

So this is something he only expected us to be able to finish over FOUR three-hour lab periods, which are now cut down to three. Plus we just found out about it. We would have only a little over a week to complete this before the exam period if we wanted to do that.

There's also the fact that some people actually have EXAMS scheduled at the same time we're supposed to be in our labs working on this project.

The fact remains that you have 10 days before exams start and 12 days after that. Pull a couple of all nighters then head to the lab to test your code before exams start.

What do you have to do for the project?

I am also interested in what you have to do for this project. I'm a first year, but I did do Digital Logic in high school - I'm guessing you're throwing a bunch of logic gates to make a calculator? I had to make a single digit subtractor last year and that took... well, a significant amount of time :p

Well we don't use the little chips like in high school, we use an hardware design language and a programmable circuit board that simulates the logic circuits. It's a little more complicated than a calculator, I think.

"The purpose of this project is to introduce you to the process of designing a microprocessor. In this project, you will design a simple processor unit that will be able to handle eight different instructions and can be extended to handle another eight different instructions later. You will use behavioral Verilog HDL to explore the design of this simple processor which will reduce the development time. For this project you have to design a simplified binary encoded language, or instruction set, for your processor. Later, you will provide your processor with a sequence of instructions, or assembly program, to execute it and to give you the final result."

Originally Posted by jjcole

Well we don't use the little chips like in high school, we use an hardware design language and a programmable circuit board that simulates the logic circuits. It's a little more complicated than a calculator, I think.

"The purpose of this project is to introduce you to the process of designing a microprocessor. In this project, you will design a simple processor unit that will be able to handle eight different instructions and can be extended to handle another eight different instructions later. You will use behavioral Verilog HDL to explore the design of this simple processor which will reduce the development time. For this project you have to design a simplified binary encoded language, or instruction set, for your processor. Later, you will provide your processor with a sequence of instructions, or assembly program, to execute it and to give you the final result."

Oh man, that sounds like a lot of work. That calculator I had to make didn't even require programming.

What engineering are you in? What class and what prof is this?